News

Alum's Bravery Earns Notice

Fuse Staff, 3/17/2011

It’s not every day you get to save someone’s life, but that’s just what outdoor adventure leadership major Tom Healy ’10 did last October. Part of the search and rescue team at Yosemite National Park in California, Healy assisted with a helicopter rescue of a woman who’d fallen and injured her leg on Half Dome, an area of dangerous terrain about 8,000 feet in elevation, during an intense thunderstorm. Healy then guided several others down the mountain on foot as lightning repeatedly struck less than 25 yards from him.

“If we hadn’t gone up there and gotten her off the mountain, she definitely would have died,” says Healy, who received a letter from the U.S. Department of the Interior commending him for his bravery. After all his training, says Healy, “it’s intuitive. It’s just your job. You need to go up there and do what you need to do.”